Dark Lord Day History Thread

Edited:

I am pretty sure they used Black Cat Espresso from Intelligentsia from 2006-2013. I found information from 2006 saying they used Black Cat, and it seems they always used that roast. Intelligentsia hosted some events named Dark Lord vs Black Cat, both in 2006 and 2011.

I think for 2014 and 2015 it was Dark Matter Unicorn Blood both years.

Links:
http://www.coffeed.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=487
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gonzoillini/5629412647/
http://www.davidleep.com/DLvsBC2/
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140422/ukrainian-village/three-floyds-changes-dark-lord-recipe-adds-dark-matters-unicorn-blood

 

2011 - More Information

Date: April 30, 2011 (Gates open at 10:00 AM)
Allotment: 4 per person
Attendance: 6,000 (6,000 tickets sold)
Variants: Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Lord (Pappy 23), Brandy Aged Dark Lord, Brandy Vanilla Bean Dark Lord, Bourbon Dark Lord De Muerte
Weather: Upper 60s with a high around 75, sunny & clear.

Lots of firsts this year:

1. First year tickets were required to enter the festival.
2. First year a fence was erected to keep non-ticketed guests out.
3. First year parking restrictions were enforced.
4. First year tickets were sold through an actual ticket vendor, with bar-coded tickets to prevent counterfeits.
5. First year an event planning company was hired to run the event, along with a private security company.
6. First year of the scratch off system for golden tickets, giving you the chance to purchase a bottle of a barrel aged dark lord variant.
7. Your ticket no longer included one pour of Dark Lord.
8. First year bottle sales were split into groups (3 groups in 2011)
9. Bottle line was routed around the outside of the building and barriers were used to help route the line.

These changes were necessary due to the huge turnout in 2010 (over 10,000 people), counterfeit tickets, a couple arrests, and concerns from other businesses in the industrial park due to the extreme crowding required 3 Floyds to make some changes.

However there were still a couple big issues, namely they still allowed guests to bring folding chairs and full size coolers inside the gates. This caused huge crowding issues with people setting up their circle of chairs and coolers inside the already cramped fenced in area. The other unwelcome change was only offering dark lord variants on draft inside the brewpub, this meant waiting in a long line to enter the brewpub if you wanted to try a variant on draft.

Overall, while it was very crowded and the lines were long (but much shorter than the previous year), it was a well run Dark Lord Day. The porta-potties did not have long lines and were not overflowing this year, which was a noted improvement. Also Randy Mosher was there signing his Tasting Beer and Radical Brewing books.

Original announcements from Three Floyds:

Guest Tap List:

Dark Lord Day 2011 - Album

Good Flickr Album - I'll probably add these into the Imgur album when I get a chance, but taking images from Flickr is annoying.

 

Dark Lord Day 2012 - More Information

Date: April 28, 2012 (Gates open at 10:00 AM)
Allotment: 4 per person
Attendance: 6,000 (6,000 tickets sold)
Variants: Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Lord, Vanilla Bean Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Lord, Cognac Barrel Aged Dark Lord, and Cognac Barrel Aged Dark Lord de Muertet
Weather: 45-50 and cloudy, rained early in the morning.
Other notable FFF to go beers: Baller Stout, BA Alpha Klaus, Mutiny and The Mollusk (Half Acre collab)

The layout was largely the same as in 2011, this year they did not allow lawn chairs or large coolers inside the gates, alleviating much of the crowding issues of the year before. Dark Lord on draft still limited to the brewpub, overall this year improved on 2011, but was very similar. Colder, but less crowded (if only slightly).

High on Fire was originally listed as: Ghan Jovi- These guys we have to keep as a huge surprise. You will not be disappointed.



Event Details from FFF:

Guest Tap Breweries:

Dark Lord Day 2012 Album (will be updating with more photos)

 

Just wanted to bump this thread because I noticed a guy offering up a supposed bottle of 2003 Dark Lord with yellow wax. His claim was that less than 500 bottles were sold direct from the brewery.

I had never heard of this before but google turned up this article, which mentions that 2003 was in fact the first bottling with 15 cases produced: http://allaboutbeer.com/article/gotta-have-beers/

However I have also found references that some bottles of 2005 Dark Lord actually had yellow wax. Such as this site here:
http://finddave.com/shane/random.htm

And this screencap from a RateBeer thread:



Here are the images that were provided, owner claims that the bottle on the left in each picture is the 2003. Note the label looks the same as the 2004 in the first pic. 2011 with yellow wax for comparison in the second pic:

 

Yeah my understanding was that it was draft only in 2002 and 2003, and that 2004 was the first bottling, but if that isn't the case I would love to hear more.

 

You could upload it to YouTube or something, and then post a link to the YouTube video. Or message me, if you want to send it to me I can upload it.

 

Dark Lord Day 2013 - More Information

Date: April 27, 2013 (Gates opened at 10:00 AM)
Allotment: 3 per person
Attendance: 9,000 (9,000 tickets sold)
Variants: Vanilla Bean Dark Lord, Bourbon Muerte, Port, Muscatel
Weather: Mid 60s, high around 68. Sunny, windy at times.
Other notable FFF to go beers: Tiberian Inquisitor, Toxic Revolution, Permanent Funeral, In The Name of Suffering

Biggest change this year was expanding the festival across the street occupying an empty lot there, also encompassing the street as was as the parking lot of the building just north of the brewery which FFF had recently acquired (and now the expanded brewery occupies this space). The band stage was moved outside making it much easier to see the acts instead of crowding inside the brewery. A new event company was hired to organize and run the event, The Running Waters Group. Improved signage and space helped make the event move much smoother overall, and reduce crowding. Barrel Aged Dark Lord variants were again available outside the brewpub. Dark Lord also got a new label this year, the first time the label art was changed.

To cut down on the second hand ticket market and help prevent people from gaming the system, they printed names on the tickets and checked ID's at the gate upon entry to validate them. Two Group sales times were also added, D and E.

Biggest issue this year probably was how long the lines got late in the day. Groups were not getting through the sales line before their group time was over, this got especially bad during Groups D and E, which ended up with 2-3 hour lines to get through.

Overall though, it was a large improvement to the festival, shorter draft lines, more space, much better concert space.

Event info from FFF:

Ticket Info from FFF:

Album to come.

 

Dark Lord Day 2013 Album

 

Dark Lord Day 2014 - More Information

Date: April 27, 2013 (Gates opened at 10:00 AM)
Allotment: 4 per person
Attendance: 8,000-10,000 (Estimated 8,000 Dark Lord sales tickets and 1,000-2,000 GA tickets.)
Variants: Vanilla Bean Dark Lord, Portugese Brandy Dark Lord, The Earl Of Biggleswade,
Weather: Mid to upper 40s. Cold and overcast, partially sunny.
Other notable FFF to go beers: 2013 Dark Lord, 2012 Dark Lord, 2011 Dark Lord, Backmasking
Notable Food: Dark Lord Ice Cream Sandwiches, Dark Lord Ice Cream, DonerMen food truck, Breakfast Tacos
Emcee: Richard Christie from The Howard Stern Show

This year the festival was yet again expanded, now incorporating both the parking lot directly across from FFF (just south of the large empty lot they incorporated last year) as well as the entire warehouse just north of FFF. The warehouse was utilized to sell non Dark Lord FFF beer to go. This helped alleviate some of the line issues from 2013 buy selling only Dark Lord in the Dark Lord line. They sold multiple vintages of Dark Lord (2011-2013) along with other FFF beers here in this warehouse.

FFF also added port o potties outside of the gates this year, as well as food tents offering breakfast tacos (which sold out early). Dark Matter also had a both this year selling coffee, Barrel Aged Iced Coffee bombers as well as glassware, the snifters created a huge demand resulting in a disorganized line with people cutting. Some of the glassware was later sold by Dark Matter online the week after the event.

General Admission tickets were also added this year, it is estimated that the Dark Lord sales tickets were reduced and those numbers replaced with GA tickets, thus reducing the load on the Dark Lord sales lines and increasing the allotment from 3 back up to 4.

Food lines were very long, herd reports of people stealing burgers as soon as they were cooked, while people who actually paid for them were waiting.

Later in the day they stopped allowing people to bring beer into the festival. (Supposedly by orders of the State Police)

During the Eyehategod set, they encouraged fans to break down the barriers so they could get closer to the stage, security eventually got the barriers back up and the crowd under control. This was attempted earlier during the Iron Reagan set, but security was able to stop it.

Variant counts:
Brandy - some bottles say 608, some say 802 (1410)
Earl of Biggleswade - 385
Vanilla - 876

Info from darklordday.com

Tickets info from darklordday.com

Album to come.

 

Dark Lord Day 2014 Album

 

Obviously the date above is wrong, DLD 2014 was on April 26, 2014. The dangers of copy & paste...